With the holiday season in full swing, the Basel Convention Regional Centre for Training and Technology Transfer for the Caribbean (BCRC-Caribbean) team is reminding consumers to be mindful of how their purchasing practices may affect the natural environment.
As many households around the Caribbean purchase new household items, gifts, and other necessities, to celebrate the holidays, it’s important to remember that unsustainable consumption practices contribute to current planetary crises like climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
Estimates by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) show that as much as two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions are linked to household decisions and practices.
As such, UNEP has also stated that it is possible to have enjoyable holidays while embracing conscious consumer habits and being aware of waste.
Currently supporting 15 Caribbean Parties with the implementation and fulfilment of their obligations to various multilateral environmental agreements – like the Basel, Rotterdam, Stockholm and Minamata Conventions – the BCRC-Caribbean team’s mission is to sustainably manage chemicals and waste through technical assistance and capacity building.
With the Centre striving to raise awareness of the harmful effects of chemicals and waste, it is crucial that individuals understand the ways in which these effects can be reduced throughout the holidays when there is an uptick in purchasing.
Make Safe Purchasing Choices
As people do home repairs, clean, and renovate, in preparation for the holidays, the long lines at hardware stores and furniture stores are telltale signs of the season.
It is important for consumers to know of the harmful chemicals which may be hidden in households and consumer products.
Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are one such group of toxic chemicals that poses danger to humans, animals and the environment.
Characteristics of POPs include:
- Highly toxic
- Difficult to destroy
- Resistant to degradation
- Can travel great distances across the air, land, and sea
- Can linger in the environment for astonishingly long periods of time
- Turn short-lived aches and pains into permanent damage that affects the liver, thyroid and vital neurological functions.
One such POP that consumers should be aware of is Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS) which is used in the manufacturing of many popular consumer goods like stain-resistant carpets and mattresses, non-stick pans/utensils, cardboard boxes and grease-proof packaging.
There are concerns that this chemical is linked to increased cholesterol levels, increased risk of thyroid disease, among others.
To mitigate the risk of encountering this chemical, choose PFAS/PFOS-free frying pans (as denoted by its labelling) when shopping this season.
Also, dispose of old stain-resistant carpets and mattresses in an environmentally sound manner (avoid open burning and co-mingling with municipal waste).
When replacing your carpets and mattresses this holiday season, make sure your purchases are clearly labelled as PFAS/PFOS free.
Consider hand-made, upcycled gifts or second-hand gifts
Making an environmentally conscious decision this holiday season can be as simple as gifting something which is handmade.
For example, jars can be used for storage, candle-making and other crafts.
By creatively reducing consumption and waste when gift-giving, this helps promote a circular economy that focuses on waste reduction and increases the recovery, reuse, and recycling of products and materials.
A circular economy model involves the following key pillars:
- Keeping products and materials circulating as long as possible. If something is no longer useful to you, or it is broken, fix it or find another use.
- Creating new products from old ones which have reached the end of their useful life.
Reduce food waste
As much as a third of all food produced globally – approximately 1.3 billion tonnes – turns into food waste every year.
Of that number, an estimated 570 million tonnes are wasted at the household level.
Consumers should be aware that food waste contributes to biodiversity loss as biodiverse lands are often cleared for greater food production.
Food waste in landfills also contributes to more organic matter which can increase methane emissions.
While food is an integral part of Christmas celebrations in the Caribbean, it is important that households make a conscious effort to:
- Buy only the ingredients they need and cook appropriately sized meals (depending on the number of people eating) to prevent food waste
- Share leftovers with guests or use leftovers in new recipes
- Compost unusable food waste at home to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Use environmentally friendly holiday lights
Traditional compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs can contain up to four milligrams of mercury which is a highly toxic chemical element.
When these CFL bulbs are broken, or improperly disposed of at the end of their useful lives, mercury can be released into the environment.
The Minamata Convention on mercury aims to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury.
This holiday season, households are encouraged to use LED bulbs for holiday and home lights as these bulbs are environmentally friendly, use up to 80 per cent less energy than CFL bulbs and last up to 25 times longer.
Solar powered lighting is also a suitable alternative and can be more economically friendly.
To learn more about sustainable holiday practices, and the BCRC-Caribbean’s fight against chemical waste, please visit the BCRC-Caribbean’s social media pages or www.bcrc-caribbean.org.
